Gary Kasparov and the Flying Penis

I really wish this had subtitles. Russian chess champion and political dissident Gary Kasparov is giving a presentation that gets interrupted in a highly unexpected way:

Apparently, according to one blogger,

After the security guard [has] swatted it to the ground, Kasparov says, "I think we have to be thankful for the opposition's demonstration of the level of discourse we need to anticipate. Also, apparently most of their arguments are located beneath the belt." Someone in the audience shouts, "Finally the political power shows its face!" Kasparov quickly replies, "Well, if that's its face..." to laughter from the audience.

Baking bread, breaking bread

Last night I baked my third yeasted loaf since I got out the Tassajara Bread Book again after years of it hiding in my boxes and/or cupboard. This time, since I was running low on almost all the flours, and need to restock, it was a weird hodgepodge of things: buckwheat, spelt, and regular (white) bread flour, 9-grain cereal, and cornmeal, with leftover sweetened condensed milk, a few eggs that needed using, a bit of leftover brown rice, a little lowfat milk, some almond oil, and of course sea salt, yeast, and filtered water, with raw sunflower seeds on top.

I was getting toward the end of the second rising when Katie and John arrived in the evening, so Katie helped me knead and shape a couple of the loaves. And then I baked it, while we sat back and chatted and enjoyed the smell of freshly baking bread. And it came out . . . brilliant! The uncooked cereal and cornmeal gave a great crunchiness throughout the loaf, but the overall texture was soft and delightfully chewy, with a lovely crust that was notably crusty without being "painful" like some crusty breads, as John pointed out. We ate almost a whole round loaf together, straight out of the oven, with organic butter and organic strawberry jam, me and my companions. . . :)

My camera batteries need replacing, but maybe I can get one more shot out of them to add here . . .